Down Under, Pt. 3

Gotta go back down there, I thought to myself.  No choice.  I assumed if I inserted myself in that hole again I would feel a little more comfortable.  So I did. I needed to squirm into the next bay to get access to the problem.  I had stuck a light down into the hole from above so that I could see the point to which to crawl.  When I managed to get into the bay, I just lay there for a bit.  Looked around.





Slowly, I inched forward and shone the light I had dragged in with me to get a sense of what was under there.  Too many pipes. I discovered that many of them were abandoned, which posed a problem for me.  When I finally made my way forward, I was stopped by some pipes that I couldn't go under or over. Some of them were abandoned water pipes, some were waste pipes I could do nothing about.




So, I crawled out backwards - with some effort - stood in the sunlight and talked with Tony about the options.



At least I gave this thing a good shot.  I now have a better understanding of my house.  A good thing.

We went back inside and I started making a bigger hole in the floor.  I was finally able to reach far enough to remove the whole broken pipe complex!  Now I know what I have to do:  widen the hole, order parts to rebuild the whole thing.  That's where it stands.

Down Under, Pt. 2

With my friend Tony helping me out,  we prepared to go down under.  I borrowed a pair of coveralls, and we got lights and some tools in place.

After having widened the access hole and clearing away as much stuff as possible, I tried to go in head first.




It didn't work. I had to do something about a pipe in the way. After backing out, I went in again with a reciprocating saw to cut off the abandoned galvanized pipe. There was also a gas pipe coming out. Couldn't cut that! Being used. Tony did a good job of keeping it out of my.

Next I tried going in feet first. Got fully inside but just couldn't see how to move on to where I needed to go. I was feeling frustrated and a little panicky in the confined space.

Screw it. I'm a failure. I'm out of here.




We decided at that point to go back into the bathroom to see if there was any way to get at the pipes from the small hole in the floor.

 

But it was just too hard to get to the pipes. Feeling deflated, I decided to try one more time to go under.

Down Under, Pt. 1

To review:

• Some water pipes broke (again) in my house during the last freeze
• The break is in a difficult place to fix, just under the floor in the bathroom
• Peering under, there is a jumbled mess I can't understand
• I decide I must go under the house to see if it can be fixed there and to try to make sense of what is what.
• I have never been under my house.
• It scares me. I'm claustrophobic.

D-Day

Tomorrow is D-Day.  I'm going down under!

Water, water everywhere. Not a drop to drink.

I knew the cold weather was coming. Worried about yet another broken pipe fiasco, I decided to turn off the water at the street knowing I wouldn’t be around to check on things while in New Mexico for Christmas. I don’t like turning off the water that way. Keeping the pressure in the pipes is good for the system, I think. Less likely to break something? When I turn it off, then on again with the pressure surging in all at once, I cringe, imagining old joints giving way. It has happened before.

Well, it happened again. I turned the water back on weeks later on a warm day. I saw the meter going round and round and sprinted into the house. Heard water gushing. No, no, no, I hissed at myself. I finally found it. Water squirting up from under the bathroom floor. Disgusted, I ran back out and turned it off. I let it sit that way for a month, as a form of punishment, burdening myself repeatedly with jugs of water for my dog and I to drink while watching past episodes of Lost.

When I got the courage to take a close look. I found this. A crack in a 90 degree elbow joint.

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This is the main cold water pipe that comes into the house. I don’t know anything about plumbing, but this can’t be standard. It comes out of the ground beneath the bathroom and does a zig into the wall. Bad place. Hard to get to. Right next to a gas pipe. I’m screwed.

This can only mean a total plumbing redo. I was hoping to replace many of the pipes after this point with all the new pex piping and stuff I ordered, but now I have to start, literally, from the ground up.

The thought withers me. Despite all the effort I have put into this house the plumbing has gotten worse. At least when I bought it, all the plumbing while butt ugly, was actually working.

Worse still, the next step is to crawl underneath the house to get at this thing and figure out how and where to cut it out. I’ve been putting off crawling underneath my house for six years. Why? I’m claustrophobic. It’s dark, cold, disjointed and cramped down there. The last time I cut a hole in the floor and looked underneath, there lay a single child’s boot in the dirt. That, in itself, is disturbing enough.